Longings and Lavender

Ladies in Lavender

Alright, I confess that having a movie entitled Ladies in Lavender on my Netflicks queue is a bit unerving. But I assure you the movie is innocent enough. Its main character, Ursula, dabbles in the unconventional briefly but she comes around in the end. Her crime in this movie was to fall in love and to be too old to do so. Or at least too old to do so with the person she falls in love with. As her affections are not reciprocated, what we get to see is a movie about heartbreak. Its beauty I suppose is in reminding us that the elderly have hearts to break.

Ursula, I gather from the lack of mention of a deceased husband in her life, has the unfortunate challenge of dealing with two heartbreaks at once and I suspect that this is why her feelings for the young Polish musician who washes up on their beach are so much more intense than those of her dear sister, Janet. Both sisters are fond of the young man. Both are missing something (or someone) in their lives. But Ursula deals with the absence of memories of such a person as well. She grieves for not only what she lacks but also for what she has always lacked. And therein, I suspect, lies the power of her attachment. The young Andrea is a solution to both a present and a past hole in her life. Although he is not a realistic solution. (Does anyone ever really care if a solution to a heart's need is realistic though?)

I thought that both Judi Dench and Maggie Smith played their parts quite brilliantly. I could believe them both. Their eyes. Their expressions. Their inflections. Their gestures. They speak of something that we all tend to forget. They remind us that human hearts may grow old but they do not thereby grow into something different. Whether you are 15 or 80, when this story is told, this story of “where did you go? I was attached to you?” it will be, or should be, told with exactly these emotions.

Question for Comment: Do you think you will be surrounded by all the love you need when you are old? Or do you suspect that you will be like Harry Chapin in Cats in the Cradle?)